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Diet Soda Assists Middle Age Spread

We folks of a certain age know all about middle age spread, when the tummy has a mind of its own and starts to wander. Now we are told that diet pop (or whatever it's called in your region) is actually not helping, despite the fact that it contains many times less calories than regular soda. That doesn't even make sense, does it? It seems to hold though, a least for older folks.

People who reported not drinking diet soda
gained an average of 0.8 inches in waist circumference over the
nine-year period compared to 1.83 inches for occasional diet soda
drinkers and more than three inches for people who drank diet soda every
day, according to the results in the Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society.

The authors had taken other factors like physical activity, diabetes and smoking into account.

“It
cannot be explained by the calories,” said Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez
of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved in the
study.

People who drink diet soda may be more likely to overeat in other areas, he told Reuters Health.